Chairs of the above described type are known, and are employed, in particular, as motor vehicle seats, in which the headrest primarily serves the safety of the user and only secondarily his comfort.
However chairs with headrests are increasingly being used in the home as well as in executive offices, as they afford the user the possiblity of relaxing as if he were in an easy chair or similar type of chair, while not having to be equipped with correspondingly high, massive backrests, which would result in a chair design which would not be suitable in many cases for reasons of space and/or cost.
Although chairs with headrests provide significant advantages over known easy chairs with high backrests, it has been found that chairs with rigidly attached headrests still do not satisfy all requirements, as it is frequently not desirable for a headrest which is only used occasionally, such as during the lunch period for example, to be seen constantly, and the headrest occasionally is bothersome, as it impedes the view to the rear and, additionally, provides a "relaxed" atmosphere in the office during normal working hours which may be undesirable for psychological reasons in offices which have a high frequency of visitors. Rigidly installed headrests are also bothersome where a plurality of chairs are arranged together for a conference or similar event, with only several of the chairs having headrests, while the others do not have headrests.